My nickname growing up was Hayls, which is obvious for a Hayleigh, but, when I was younger, I tried getting kids to call me Allie/Anna because my middle name's Alannah, and I wanted to go by that. It was short lived, and lasted about 2 weeks.

I have a male friend who goes by 'Smalls'. He always has been - his real name is Kyle but he's been nicknamed Smalls since he was born because he's the youngest. He's also really short compared to the rest of his family so the name just fits.

My daughter is often called Bea and her full name is Benedikte. I assumed she would be called Bennie or Benna but my nephew called her Bea because he calls me my childhood nickname of Dee and it stuck. It really helped that my nickname obsessed FIL had a series of Aunts nicknamed Biechen in German so he was all over it. Close relations call her Biechen, we tell everyone else she is Benedikte but they can call her Bea, which they mostly do.

I used to call my friend Tali for Crystal. I also had a friend named Jen that I used to call Nancy because she looked so much like NancyKerrigan. It was bad when a couple years out of school at the gas station the cashier said to me "you used to be friend's with Jen XXX". I told her I had no idea who she was talking about until I went home and looked in my yearbook. It was one of my best friend's Nancy!! haha.